We've interviewed Shawn Gordon, President and CEO of theKompany.com, over at Linux.com. Among other things, in this lengthy interview we discuss theKompany's business model, a bit about Eazel and Ximian, their current software, and future plans for Rekall, Kivio, Kapital, and KODE.

Michael W. Smith?
I listen to dc Talk ALL THE TIME! They are my favorite group! Micheal W. Smith is really good too, but I like dc Talk, Audio Adrenaline, Project 86, Tourniquet, P.O.D., Earthsuit, and a few others while coding, driving, sleeping, eating... I guess I could just say "living" and that'd cover it!

Hi A. Cantrell,
Let me second that for Christian Music (for coding, eating, and driving - although I'm not sure about sleeping)! I must admit that I haven't had the opportunity to hear much dc Talk, but I need to put that on my "todo" list.
I guess while I'm at it, I might as well add in a few more good CCM'ers... Steven Curtis Chapman, Wes King, Chris Rice, Hillsongs Australia, and Sixpence None the Richer are good for CCM choices for coding (and eating, and driving, and who knows, maybe even sleeping) too. They all were helpful in getting a major coding project done.

I guess I'm not the only one who thinks Christian Music is idea for coding then, eh? :-)

Have you ever checked out http://www.christiancoders.com it has a message board and some other stuff. It's not really Linux programming, most of the people seem to be into Windows programming, but there's hope for them, eh? =)

Agreed - the Brandenburg Concertos are what I use when I'm doing high level design. After that, it's really doesn't matter; it all fades into the background when I code. Lately, I've been listening to rough, gritty stuff like Violent Femmes, Nick Cave, Black 47, Boiled in Lead... but ELO, Queen, Erasure, Oingo Boingo, Devo, Holst, 10k Maniacs, Dead Milkmen, Zeppelin, Lords of Acid... all have been good coding music. Sony's 400 disk CD changers are great.

I've very sensitive to sound and space when I code - I can't stand people behind me, and while I can do admin tasks in silence, I can't *really* get into code unless music is playing - in the 80's, I would just listen to Metallica's ...and Justice For All album on repeat for hours on end while I worked (prior to that, Pink Floyd's The Wall). Over and over and over... but I wasn't really listening.

About the only things I can't code to are songs by James Taylor, Zappa, Janis Joplin, late era Beatles, some soundtracks and a few others - it's not that the music isn't good... it just intrudes into my mental space, and I wind up listening rather than coding.

Right this moment, though, I'm listening to quite possibly the best title for something to listen to while coding: put out by Information Society, the title of the album (which uses things like a modem connect as the start of a song) is simply:

Yes, the Brandenburg Concertos are great. I would also like to recommend the small pieces like the Goldberg Variations, partitas, suites and others. I think there's something in the polyphonic music that stimulates your mind.

anyway...to pull this post somewhere vaguely on topic, I must say that as a lurker on koffice and koffice-devel and a regular reader of the dot that I have seen nothing but good things from Shawn and theKompany.com. I hope he keeps up the good work, and manages to make theKompany.com a success.

I wrote and recorded a progressive hard rock "concept" album about 7 years ago on 8 track in my garage with my last band. I recently converted it to MP3's and I was thinking about putting it up somewhere. I wish the quality was better, but it's not too bad.

It seems like a lot of good programmers are also musicians, seems to have something to do with our superior brains and constant typing :).

I appreciate your kind words, and I know our hard working programmers do too.

Oh I love Ogg Vorbis, I just didn't have the tools to make it set up yet. I've got some interesting ideas of some things I would like to do with that technology. I'll have to try that new Konqueror plug in and pull them off the CD they are on, I think that will work.

From the interview I got that KODE was an IDE for multipile languages. It would be great if there was a 'usable' IDE for UNIX, something with an editor like SlickEdit that does simple project management and can debug threads is all I realy want(Motif support would nice though, Qt cost too much). Can you give more info please!!!

I don't want to get into a lot of details until things are closer to completion. I have a severe aversion to vaporware and I don't want to create false expectations, so try to hang tight and as the product continues to come together, we will let more details out.

Maybe Shawn was a bit rough on Xamian. I hear that there's a huge market for stuffed monkey's out there. Maybe they can expand into beanie babys or those MCDolands toys that they give away in the happy meals.

It now appears that Xamian is an elaborate ploy to get linux users to purchase stuffed animals. I don't know if its true but i heard that Miguel came up with the idea will working as a carney at a circus in Mexico city. It may not be true but i heard hes the third los lobos brother.